Roadside piano sparks passing neighbors' interest

Wednesday

CRESTVIEW — An upright piano sitting by John King Road excited the interest of passing neighbors in the Cherokee Bend subdivision earlier this week. Social media was instantly a-twitter at the sight.

CRESTVIEW — An upright piano sitting by John King Road excited the interest of passing neighbors in the Cherokee Bend subdivision earlier this week. Social media was instantly a-twitter at the sight.

However, unlike the grand piano that appeared on a sandbar off the coast of Mary Esther earlier this week, there was little mystery surrounding the southeast Crestview instrument. The owner simply wanted it out of her house.

"It's been in my house for three or four years," resident Emily Sanders said. "My son kept saying he's coming to get it, he's coming to get it. I finally gave him an ultimatum: 'Come and get it or I'm putting it out by the road.'"

Sanders said her son-in-law was originally going to put the piano out by the road several years ago, but her son wanted it for his own son to take piano lessons.

When a group of family and friends came to Sanders' home for Easter dinner, she realized she had the moving crew needed to schlep the piano out of the house.

With a "free piano" sign next to it, it wasn't long until a passing motorist stopped to examine the instrument Tuesday evening and promised to come back with the manpower and a vehicle to move it out of Sanders' carport.

Sanders estimated the piano, which bears no manufacturer's name, to be about 50 or 60 years old. She knows little else about it, except, "it's very, very heavy, and has three or four years of dust and dirt in it."